Browsing by Author "Liang, Han"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Allele-Specific Reprogramming of Cancer Metabolism by the Long Non-coding RNA CCAT2
    (Elsevier, 2016-02-18) Redis, Roxana S.; Vela, Luz E.; Lu, Weiqin; de Oliveira, Juliana Ferreira; Ivan, Cristina; Rodriguez-Aguayo, Cristian; Adamoski, Douglas; Pasculli, Barbara; Taguchi, Ayumu; Chen, Yunyun; Fernandez, Agustin F.; Valledor, Luis; Van Roosbroeck, Katrien; Chang, Samuel; Shah, Maitri; Kinnebrew, Garrett; Han, Leng; Atlasi, Yaser; Cheung, Lawrence H.; Huang, Gilbert Yuanjay; Monroig, Paloma; Ramirez, Marc S.; Ivkovic, Tina Catela; Van, Long; Ling, Hui; Gafà, Roberta; Kapitanovic, Sanja; Lanza, Giovanni; Bankson, James A.; Huang, Peng; Lai, Stephan Y.; Bast, Robert C.; Rosenblum, Michael G.; Radovich, Milan; Ivan, Mircea; Bartholomeusz, Geoffrey; Liang, Han; Fraga, Mario F.; Widger, William R.; Hanash, Samir; Berindan-Neagoe, Ioana; Lopez-Berestein, Gabriel; Ambrosio, Andre L.B.; Dias, Sandra M Gomes; Calin, George A.; Department of Surgery, IU School of Medicine
    Altered energy metabolism is a cancer hallmark as malignant cells tailor their metabolic pathways to meet their energy requirements. Glucose and glutamine are the major nutrients that fuel cellular metabolism, and the pathways utilizing these nutrients are often altered in cancer. Here, we show that the long ncRNA CCAT2, located at the 8q24 amplicon on cancer risk-associated rs6983267 SNP, regulates cancer metabolism in vitro and in vivo in an allele-specific manner by binding the Cleavage Factor I (CFIm) complex with distinct affinities for the two subunits (CFIm25 and CFIm68). The CCAT2 interaction with the CFIm complex fine-tunes the alternative splicing of Glutaminase (GLS) by selecting the poly(A) site in intron 14 of the precursor mRNA. These findings uncover a complex, allele-specific regulatory mechanism of cancer metabolism orchestrated by the two alleles of a long ncRNA.
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    Epstein–Barr Virus MicroRNAs are Expressed in Patients with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia and Correlate with Overall Survival
    (ScienceDirect, 2015-06) Ferrajoli, Alessandra; Ivan, Cristina; Ciccone, Maria; Shimizu, Masayoshi; Kita, Yoshiaki; Ohtsuka, Masahisha; D'Abundo, Lucilla; Qiang, Jun; Lerner, Susan; Nouraee, Nazila; Rabe, Kari G.; Rassenti, Laura Z.; Van Roosbroeck, Katrien; Manning, John T.; Yuan, Yuan; Zhang, Xinna; Shanafelt, Tait D.; Wierda, William G.; Sabbioni, Silvia; Tarrand, Jeffrey J.; Estrov, Zeev; Radovich, Milan; Liang, Han; Negrini, Massimo; Kipps, Thomas J.; Kay, Neil E.; Keating, Michael; Calin, George A.; Department of Surgery, IU School of Medicine
    Although numerous studies highlighted the role of Epstein–Barr Virus (EBV) in B-cell transformation, the involvement of EBV proteins or genome in the development of the most frequent adult leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), has not yet been defined. We hypothesized that EBV microRNAs contribute to progression of CLL and demonstrated the presence of EBV miRNAs in B-cells, in paraffin-embedded bone marrow biopsies and in the plasma of patients with CLL by using three different methods (small RNA-sequencing, quantitative reverse transcription PCR [q-RT-PCR] and miRNAs in situ hybridization [miRNA-ISH]). We found that EBV miRNA BHRF1-1 expression levels were significantly higher in the plasma of patients with CLL compared with healthy individuals (p < 0 · 0001). Notably, BHRF1-1 as well as BART4 expression were detected in the plasma of either seronegative or seropositive (anti-EBNA-1 IgG and EBV DNA tested) patients; similarly, miRNA-ISH stained positive in bone marrow specimens while LMP1 and EBER immunohistochemistry failed to detect viral proteins and RNA. We also found that BHRF1-1 plasma expression levels were positively associated with elevated beta-2-microglobulin levels and advanced Rai stages and observed a correlation between higher BHRF1-1 expression levels and shorter survival in two independent patients' cohorts. Furthermore, in the majority of CLL cases where BHRF1-1 was exogenously induced in primary malignant B cells the levels of TP53 were reduced. Our findings suggest that EBV may have a role in the process of disease progression in CLL and that miRNA RT-PCR and miRNAs ISH could represent additional methods to detect EBV miRNAs in patients with CLL.
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    The mutational landscape and functional effects of noncoding ultraconserved elements in human cancers
    (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2025) Bayraktar, Recep; Tang, Yitao; Dragomir, Mihnea P.; Ivan, Cristina; Peng, Xinxin; Fabris, Linda; Zhang, Jianhua; Carugo, Alessandro; Aneli, Serena; Liu, Jintan; Chen, Mei-Ju M.; Srinivasan, Sanjana; Sahnoune, Iman; Bayraktar, Emine; Akdemir, Kadir C.; Chen, Meng; Narayanan, Pranav; Huang, Wilson; Ott, Leonie Florence; Eterovic, Agda Karina; Villarreal, Oscar Eduardo; Mohammad, Mohammad Moustaf; Peoples, Michael D.; Walsh, Danielle M.; Hernandez, Jon Andrew; Morgan, Margaret B.; Shaw, Kenna R.; Davis, Jennifer S.; Menter, David; Tam, Constantine S.; Yeh, Paul; Dawson, Sarah-Jane; Rassenti, Laura Z.; Kipps, Thomas J.; Kunej, Tanja; Estrov, Zeev; Joosse, Simon A.; Pagani, Luca; Alix-Panabières, Catherine; Pantel, Klaus; Ferajoli, Alessandra; Futreal, Andrew; Wistuba, Ignacio I.; Radovich, Milan; Kopetz, Scott; Keating, Michael J.; Draetta, Giulio F.; Mattick, John S.; Liang, Han; Calin, George A.; Surgery, School of Medicine
    The mutational landscape of phylogenetically ultraconserved elements (UCEs), especially those in noncoding DNAs (ncUCEs), and their functional relevance in cancers remain poorly characterized. Here, we perform a systematic analysis of whole-genome and in-house targeted UCE sequencing datasets from more than 3000 patients with cancer of 13,736 UCEs and demonstrate that ncUCE somatic alterations are common. Using a multiplexed CRISPR knockout screen in colorectal cancer cells, we show that the loss of several altered ncUCEs significantly affects cell proliferation. In-depth functional studies in vitro and in vivo further reveal that specific ncUCEs can be enhancers of tumor suppressors (such as ARID1B) and silencers of oncogenic proteins (such as RPS13). Moreover, several miRNAs located in ncUCEs are recurrently mutated. Mutations in miR-142 locus can affect the Drosha-mediated processing of precursor miRNAs, resulting in the down-regulation of the mature transcript. These results provide systematic evidence that specific ncUCEs play diverse regulatory roles in cancer.